Extra! Extra!

I'm talking to Sean yesterday and he asks me, "Did you see KSL has a copycat version of your story on their Web site?" Curious, I check it out and there it is!

Some background: About four years ago I was writing for BYU's newspaper, "The Daily Universe." It was a required class for public relations. Our final project was to write a feature story on anything we wanted. I spoke with my editor about wanting to write about BYU-INFO (a phone number people can call for information on anything from why the flag is at half-staff to needing the phone number to a particular person or department). My editor had heard that there was an older couple living in North Salt Lake whose phone number spelled out BYU-INFO and suggested I give them a call. You would think BYU-INFO's phone number would in fact spell out BYU-INFO, but it doesn't. The number for BYU-INFO is actually 422-INFO. Long story short, this couple whose phone number spells BYU-INFO was getting a lot of accidental calls from people trying to call the other number.

I interviewed the couple for the story and even went to their home. They were awesome! Instead of being mad about all of the extra calls, they enjoyed them. I found out that they actually tracked on a map with push pins where the callers were calling from. They loved talking to the people and found the whole situation humorous. Sounds like the perfect feature story, right? I thought so too. So I wrote my story.

As I said, it was my final project and after submitting my story I headed home to Idaho Falls for Christmas break. Little did I know the chain reaction my story would start. When I returned from the break I learned my story had been picked up by the Deseret News, News of the Weird (which is national!), tv stations, radio stations and other newspapers. Obviously I was shocked, and I must admit, sorta proud of myself.

So here is my ORIGINAL story (hint hint KSL). Keep in mind if you read this that I was a young pr student and my writing skills were not quite up to par...

And here is the link to the story in the Deseret News.

So here we are, more than four years later and KSL decides to ressurect the story on their site. It was kind of fun seeing it pop up again, although I wish the reporter would have given me some credit instead of claiming it as his/her own!